This post is probably one of the most powerful I’ve ever shared, but it’s horrifying and triggering . Please read with caution, patience, understanding. This is my reality!!!

These past few weeks I’ve been in quite a raging rapids of memories. However, I try to remain hopeful as friends speak out to me; “Time heals all wounds” REALLY????

Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse, Adult Survivors of Rape; even our returning war vets and others who have gone through some form of life threatening trauma never forget.

Do we learn how to cope? Yes; this is quite possible with the help of a support system and tools of a trained trauma recovery therapist. We can remain hopeful and live in the present at most times.

My life has been truly safe these past seven years. I’ve got one of the most loving and protective men I’ve ever known. He has held me as I’ve curled up and cried like an infant. He walks each step along recovery with me. It’s a life I have imagined finally coming true!!

However; still I am plagued with haunting memories and sensations of fear. There are still moments, days, even weeks when I am taken to the darkness of my past and each breath is a struggle to get through.

This has been one of those months!!! This blog is filled with the paralyzing fear that I have to get out of my system. Hopefully it will, in some strange way, help others understand the impact of this reality as being a survivor of evil so horrific most cannot even imagine.

Lately I feel trapped by his presence. It’s difficult to breathe or even think. I can feel his heavy breath and panting over my shoulder. My skin actually crawls at the sense of his touch grasping at me. As I do dishes the weight of his body creates a pressure caging me against the sink. When stepping out of the shower his hands fill the bathroom air with the stench of black coal.

He is back again!!! He is all around me!!!

He’s in my car when I’m driving; sitting there in the passenger side with the devil’s grin and his thick coal stained hand rubs on my thigh. I can feel it groping at my shirt, clenching on my breast. He is hovering around me as I climb into bed next to the one I love so dearly. I scooch over and curl into a ball as close to safety as I can, wanting to climb inside so that I will be protected from the blackness around me. Even as I write this now he is here; everywhere; completely surrounding, taunting, almost as if he’s laughing and then I hear his grueling whisper, “I will always be here. You will never escape me.”

MY GOD WHEN DOES IT END? Perhaps when I am dead or will he be there waiting for me, taking me down to hell with him, keeping me there to torture all over again!!!

This is the reality for those of us who have survived through evil that other’s can’t even touch, their minds cannot circle around the days, nights, years of continuous torture we have endured.

To be raped or molested as a child is brutal enough. Even those who have been raped as adults have a difficult task of moving past it. When your childhood days are filled with sadistic torture, so brutal that your soul is murdered; TELL ME HOW WE ARE TO GET PAST THIS. TELL ME HOW WE ARE TO “JUST FORGET ABOUT IT”!!!

When you are six and held by a fist full of hair as someone probes you so viciously it bruises you and hurts for days. When you are nine and cannot even bathe or do dishes without being trapped and touched. When you are twelve and you are forced to strip with a shotgun barrel rubbing along your body. When you are threatened with death as you’re told to lie down on the bed. When you feel the barrel of the gun ripping apart at your guts as its repeatedly jammed inside you. When you lie there knowing there is no escape, no rescue, no sense of help. You hear the television downstairs, you know your brother and sister are there enjoying a show, but you are here. You’re forced to hold back the screams of pain; forced to hold back the tears of madness. You hear the voice of terror as it threatens to blow your head off from the inside of your vagina. Then suddenly it feels as if your insides are shredded and scraped out with a searing knife. You feel the barrel as it’s ripped out so quickly you think it’s tearing out your soul.

Your existence is gone now. The young child you were is no longer there. It’s only blackness around you and in you. There is no laughter, no play time, no smile, no shine in your eyes; only a blank empty shell laying on the royal blue quilted bedspread.

He brings the barrel up to your face. You try to focus and you hear his words, “You will die if you say a word to anyone again!!!”

You see the blood and tissue of your soul clinging to the end of the gun. You know it is over now. There will never be joy in your spirit again because the devil has taken it and erased the child who lived inside.

Where is the comfort of death when I need it so desperately? Why has God allowed my purity to be taken in such an act of terror? Why has He covered my life in darkness?

Tell me please – “How do you erase these fears? How do you -“Just get over it?” How in the hell am I supposed to move past and forget this evil when it feels as if his spirit is here waiting for me to die???!!!

Could you do it? Could you pretend it never happened? Could you go through life trying to hide this black that crawls inside of you? Could you still function, be a wife, be a mother, try to guide your own children through life with joy and the tenderness of childhood?

The child I was; the broken soul of a woman; the spirit of a mother; now the strength and determination of a SURVIVOR!!!

(c)Patricia A. McKnight

“My Justice” has been written, has been spoken, but have you really heard that voice of the girl who held back the tears; the voice that wanted to scream out in fear for help; the child that hid her way through life and covered up the rot of her skin; the disregard of her mother; the infection of black from the devil who still haunts my world.

This book will form part of a series with PCCS books. The first of these books, ‘Our
Encounters with Madness‘, has received excellent reviews. Fran Biley is now working on
‘Our Encounters with Suicide‘. Both of these are collections of individuals’ own
testimonies and narratives – about the care they have received, about what works and
what doesn’t, about their life events and histories, and about how individuals
conceptualise issues which are commonly only referred to as ‘pathological’ or as a sign of
‘mental illness’. We have been contracted to develop a third book in this series, ‘Our
Encounters with Self Harm’.

Such a book is desperately needed for clinicians and students working with individuals
who self harm, across the…

I was contacted by a friend who witnessed Clayton Griffin, a Federal Police Officer who was just sentenced to 55 years, pursue his interest in me while at work. When she told me what happened I quite honestly did not remember him – but she did. She used to work directly with him, and anytime I came to see her, he would try to talk to me until I abruptly expressed disinterest.

More alarming that the news (because I don’t have any kind of attachment to his plight), was the arguments by commenters who personally know Mr. Griffin. I believe that based on the comments, some of them could be family members and one may be the victim. Why they chose to have this argument on a public website for the world to see remains to be understood but there are a lot sirens that went off in my…

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Quite an interesting topic of discussion related to the possibility and high risk of Rape, Child Sexual Assault or Abduction from use of public restrooms by Transgender Women. Something to think about, read the entire article and then decide, good stuff

A friend mortified by the recent paperwork that she received from her job stating “Guidance: Gender-Specific Facilities” contacted me immediately to express her concern that allowing Transgendered individuals to use the restroom in whatever bathroom they choose, namingly a restroom dedicated to women, will result in an increase of sexual assault. For transgendered people this is an evolution of their rights, what they feel is due them for not being comfortable with the way that they were born.

However, for women who use public restrooms often alone or with their children, feel that their privacy is being infringed upon and put in grave danger. Before you skip to the comments section, please take a moment to read the article in its entirety, because this argument is relevant.

According to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary Transgender means : of, relating to, or being a person (as a transsexual or a transvestite) who identifies with…

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Some insight from this expert psychologist about reports and research founded to help diagnose suicide in some patients. What a wonderful gift this is and I’m sure it will be of a great resource to many distinguished therapists & clinicians to prevent suicide and save lives, thanks so much for sharing. It happens that I have close connections with many survivors of traumatic abuse who have suicidal thoughts and it is vital for someone to help them before it is too late. It can be so easy to get swept away in the distress of healing and moving past what has happened, this is indeed a bright light to help protect those who are in this falling point, ty!!

A few days ago, I was passed a rather controversial article written by an American psychologist in the wake of the Tony Scott suicide stating that “he hates suicide but understands it in the case of terminal illnesses” and “even highly trained psychologists have trouble defining a suicidal patient”. As a psychologist, I know this is something that you must keep a very close eye on, looking for those tell-tale words and signs that can point you towards diagnosis. However, the very nature of the relationship between therapist and client sometimes hinders this in the fact that if someone is determined to end their life, they are unlikely to tell someone who can take steps to stop it. This places a huge responsibility on the shoulders of psychologists who more often that not do not or cannot pick up the signs. However, new research (highlighted below) would seem to suggest…

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Definitely agree there are so many great books on various subjects that are never brought to the forefront of society. I look forward to seeing more from you. Thanks for providing this look into the TO-BE-READ-PILE!!!

It’s the nature of book blogging to focus mainly on new releases, but there are thousands of great books out there that haven’t seen the “New Releases” shelf in years. We hope to be able to bring attention to some older titles that may not be at the top of the current bestseller list, but still deserve a spot in your To-Be-Read pile.

You don’t have to be a book blogger to participate! You can put up a Throwback Thursday post on your non-bookish blog; or if you don’t have a blog at all, just use the comments to tell us about a book you remember fondly.

Here’s how it works:
1. Pick any book released more than 5 years ago. Adult, YA, Children’s; doesn’t matter. Any great book will do.